What a Wonderful World
by Niamh is searching for a muse
Summary: Yes, that's right, angst, I know, scary. I wrote this because I always felt sorry for Gohan, he always seemed so ineffectual. Oh, P.S. to add insult to injury, it's a songfic too!


__

Be afraid, be very afraid, Niamh has come out with a SONGFIC **insert horrified screaming here**

****So this story is VERY dark, it has no redeeming light at all, consider yourselves warned! You know, reading my other work someone could misconstrue that I really have it out for Gohan, but honestly I wrote this because I always felt sorry for him. Seriously, the poor boy, even after the old kai "awoke hidden powers" he still didn't have what it took to save the day, poor, poor boy.

So all standard disclaimers apply, I own nothing.

What a Wonderful World

_**I see trees of green**_

A man stands alone in a sparsely decorated hotel room. The stiff, heavy curtains are closed against the morning sun, the loudly patterned bedspread lays crisp and untouched on the bed. The man hasn't slept in days. A harsh yellow light flickers from a chipped lamp. The television emits a soft buzz. It's stuck on a poorly received channel, the remote bolted to the bedside table.

**_Red roses too_**

The man stands quietly before a cracked, dim mirror. His eyes pass aimlessly over his reflection, thin, pale mouth, sunken chest, raw, red hands. His eyes are hollow and dim, empty, lifeless, and yet they seem overfilled with history. Countless stories haunt the depths of his eyes, memories he's tried so hard to forget, and something more, buried so deep that it's almost undetectable...unrealized potential, a lost future. As much as he shudders to admit it, somewhere deep, buried under years of layers, they are his father's eyes.

**_I see them bloom_**

He is gaunt, pale, but the shadow of strength is still visible. It hangs about him like some ghost of the past, intangible, yet inescapable. If things had been different, if life had been fair, he could have been a great man. He gazes at his reflection a few moments more without really seeing it. Then, as if drawn there by some undeniable force, his eyes stare directly into their own reflection.

"My name is Gohan Son," he says in a voice void of all emotion, "and I am a murderer."

**_For me and you_**

Two pictures hang in opposite corners of the mirror. On the right is a group of men, their power evident, even in the photograph. They appear to be friends, they grin, smile, smirk, or scowl at the camera, but they are not posed together, their arms draped casually over one another's shoulders as is common in photos of friends. It seems their power or their pride make it unbearable for them to stand near each other. The man is in that photo. These were his friends, his mentors, his family.

"My name is Gohan Son," he says, "and if they knew me now, I would be their enemy."

_**And I think to myself**_

The other is a picture of a man and a woman. Unlike the first they are standing quite close, his arm slung affectionately around her shoulders and hers around his waist. Their free hands are both placed on her stomach where the bulge of pregnancy is visible. They are smiling happily.

"Your son is a murderer."

**_What a wonderful world_**

The man leaves the mirror and sits on the bed, picking up a crumpled paper. After staring at it a moment he tosses it back to the ground and picks up another. He repeats this until it seems he has found the one he wants. Carefully he smoothes it out on the table and pulls a pen from the drawer.

_Father,_

It reads.

_I am a failure._

__

It isn't easy being the son of a hero. It isn't easy growing up in the shadow of a man who isn't there, trying to make an identity for yourself when all anyone wants is for you to be your father. And then, when you finally have a chance to prove yourself, to fail and to have a real hero clean up your mess. It isn't easy.

**_I see skies of blue_**

Gohan Son left Satan City when he turned twenty-one. He left to find a life for himself, to find a place that hadn't heard of Goku Son, a place where he could be what he was born to be. What he found was Tokyo. Home to more than 12 million people, 6 million men, 6 million women, and 9 Sailor Senshi.

_I am a failure._

He had come to be a hero, what he became was overkill... again. The day he arrived there was an attack in the park. Ready and eager to prove himself Gohan powered up and raced to where he could sense the monster. What he found there surprised even him.

**_And clouds of white_**

A woman lay unconscious in the grass, beside her stood a monster that seemed to have been pulled straight from a badly conceived horror flick.

"Get away from her!" he bellowed at the strange creature.

The monster gazed maliciously at the saiyan for a moment before he let out a harsh grating laugh. "I see the Sailors have a new friend." It said in an oily, viscous voice.

**_The bright blessed day_**

"Sailors?" Gohan asked, off balance for a moment.

The monster chortled and sent a wave of dark energy into the limp woman.

"Leave that woman alone Nega-scum!" A voice shouted behind the saiyan, "In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"

Gohan turned to see nine women in sailor uniforms, complete with unbelievably short skirts.

Initially in a paralyzed shock, Gohan watched as the women battled the strange monster. He watched as they were pummeled by the creature, as a strange and equally ineffectual man joined them. Finally the saiyan shook off his shock and stepped into the fight, determined to end it immediately.

Without saying a word Gohan hurled an energy blast at the monster and hit it directly in the stomach. The Senshi froze and turned toward him.

"No need to thank me ladies." He said with a smile.

An instant later the Senshi flashed into action once more. Four of them kneeled around what was, to the young saiyan's horror, now no longer a hideous monster, but instead a young boy. The fifth squared herself off in front of him.

"Who are you?" She asked in a harsh voice rife with anger.

Gohan managed only a stuttered reply.

"You could have KILLED him!" she screamed.

**_And the dark sacred night_**

The women gathered the boy up and dashed off to a hospital, leaving Gohan alone in a now empty park.

_I am a failure._

__

The man adds a few more sentences before he slips the note into an envelope. On the front he writes only

Goku Son

Satan City

That's all that is needed.

_**And I think to myself**_

He pulls a clean sheet of paper out of the drawer and addresses it to a woman he's never met.

_I just wanted to be a hero._

__

"I want you to kill the Sailor Senshi"

Gohan nearly choked on his brioche.

**_What a wonderful world_**

He had been three weeks in the city before a strange man knocked on his door. As soon as the lock was undone a man in a crisp linen suit swaggered into Gohan's hotel room.

"Who are you?" Gohan said, startled.

"You're Gohan Son." He said. It was a statement, not a question.

The man walked casually to the sink and carefully washed his hands, drying them on the crisp white towel that lay on the counter.

"Who ARE you?"

"Son of Goku and Chichi, in the city for three weeks."

Gohan was getting pretty tired of this man telling him things he already knew.

"WHO ARE YOU!"

The man seemed surprised. "Are you hungry Mr. Son?"

The question caught Gohan completely off guard; in all honesty he was hungry. His food had run out the day before and, for a saiyan, even a half saiyan, a day was a lifetime.

"Lets grab an early lunch, my treat."

**_The colors of the rainbow_**

Gohan managed a nod, if this man wanted to feed a full-grown hungry saiyan it was his bankruptcy. They climbed into the man's limousine, sitting in utter silence until they reached a small French restaurant.

"I think you'll like this place Mr. Son." the man said as the waiter seated them at a secluded table usually reserved, Gohan assumed, for newlyweds and gangsters.

**_So pretty in the sky_**

"I'll start with the pate," the man said without opening the menu, "then the Coq au Vin, with your best Merlot."

The waiter nodded and turned to Gohan.

"I'll have four of everything," he said, studying the nameless man for any reaction. The man smiled but seemed unsurprised. The waiter, however, seemed ready to swallow his own tongue.

"I'm sorry sir, you said four?"

Gohan nodded and the mysterious man waived a hand at the waiter, "tell the cook to do whatever it takes, it's all on my bill."

The waiter nodded and slipped away.

**_Are also on the faces_**

"Who are you?" Gohan asked, when they were once again alone.

"You know they train the waiters for four months here before they can wait tables on their own? Ask any waiter and they can tell you the ingredients in anything on the menu, right down to the spices, if the cook decides to make a change the waiters have to learn that too. It's amazing."

"Who are-"

But just then their food began to arrive. It seemed to Gohan that it had to have been cooked at a miraculous rate of speed. But, farbeit from him to complain or ignore food Gohan set his question aside and tore into his food.

**_Of people passing by_**

By the time the saiyan reached the last of his dessert, an amazing chocolate filled brioche, the strange man had been finished for nearly half an hour. As Gohan was taking his last bite the man leaned forward, folding his hands before him on the table.

"Mr. Son," he spoke coolly, without any evidence of nervousness or discomfort, "I want you to help me kill the Sailor Senshi."

**_I see friends shaking hands_**

When Gohan managed to swallow the pastry he shifted nervously in his chair. "Sir," he said with feigned curtsey "I believe you have me read wrong. I rob from the rich, I catch purse snatchers, I thwart evil plots, I'd be more likely to help the Sailors kill you."

The man smiled smoothly. "No, Mr. Son," he said, pulling a file from his briefcase. "I don't believe I have read you wrong." The man opened the file and began to read from it. "Gohan Son" he said "eldest son of Chichi and Goku Son. While I see no record of rich robbing or unsnatching purses, you thwarted a villain who called himself Cell when you were eleven, finishing him off after your father gave his life to weaken the monster. Since then you have participated in but not finished many more apocalyptic battles, the most recent being the fight against Boo, at which point an old Kai unlocked your hidden powers. You left home when you turned twenty-one to find a place you could be more heroic.

"But," the man said, replacing the file, "I do not want you to read us wrong Mr. Son." he pulled another file from the briefcase and passed it over the table to Gohan. "You see Mr. Son, the question is not whether these girls deserve it or not, the question is if you had to take one life to save a billion others, would you?"

"Nine" Gohan muttered.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nine, there would be nine lives."

The man only smiled. "Read that file Mr. Son," he said standing "I'll return in a week for your answer."

_I just wanted to be a hero._

They returned to the hotel once again in silence.

"You'll hear from me in a week Mr. Son." The man said as the driver opened the door for Gohan to get out. And then the black limo and the strange man were gone. Gohan realized that he had never gotten the man's name.

**_Saying how do you do_**

He tossed the file on the dresser and fully intended to ignore it and then hurl it at the man's head when he returned. But in the end the small manila file was irresistible, after three days he was sitting on the bed with the file in front of him.

It held pictures of all the Sailors, both in Senshi uniform and out. It had details on their lives away from herodom, names, ages, addresses, jobs dreams and talents. As it was he saw nothing that would make him want to kill them. The final pages held information on the Sailors as a group, the past present and future. It was the future that caught his attention.

_The Sailors believe that their leader will ascend the throne over a reborn world with her fiancée ruling beside her. Before this happens, however, the sailors believe the world will be attacked and placed in a second ice age, While the Senshi seem convinced that this would only put the world's population in a temporary stasis all scientific evidence estimates at least a 95% extinction rate, and that number doesn't include the damage inevitably done to existing wild and plant life. The fact is, for all the Senshi's hopeful idealism, that such an event would be catastrophic to the human race along with nearly all life on the planet, it would be unsurvivable._

_It is unclear what the impetus will be for this catastrophe, whether it will be natural or imposed. What is clear is that the Senshi seem to have done nothing to prevent it, they have warned no one, and indeed why would they? They believe they have everything to gain from this event and, in an aura of naïveté that could almost be called "bambiesque", they believe this event will have no adverse effects on the people they intend to rule. _

_Recent studies have shown a coloration not only between the arrival of the Sailor Senshi and the arrival violent aggressors to Tokyo, but also to a frightening drop in the earth's temperatures, it seems, whether the are aware of it or not, it will be the Senshi themselves that cause the catastrophe and therefore it will be the Senshi themselves that cause the annihilation of the human race._

_If you had to take one life to save a billion others, would you?_

_I just wanted to be a hero._

Gohan felt the room go cold. With shaking hands he replaced the last page and closed the folder.

_I just wanted to be a hero._

When the man returned two days later Gohan wasn't sure he had moved at all. The man knocked softly and entered the room without waiting for the door to be opened.

**_They're really saying_**

"Have you come to a decision Mr. Son?"

Gohan stood and quietly made his way to the man, the file in his hand. "You have made yourself judge, jury and executioner for a group of women who have done nothing wrong at all" he said, pushing the folder into the man's hands, "and you want me to be a part of it?"

"It isn't that simple Mr. Son." The man said coolly, "And I think you know that."

"I've tried my whole life to be a hero, to live up to my father's legacy, I am no murderer."

"What is it that a hero does Mr. Son?' The man said, walking to the mirror and studying the pictures of Gohan's friends and family. "What exactly is your father's legacy? He has taken lives, hasn't he?"

"My father is a good man."

"I never said he wasn't Mr. Son, but he has taken lives, hasn't he?"

"My father kills villains when he has to."

"Villains, yes. Men and women, creatures that would destroy human life for their own gains. Did your father seek to rule the world Mr. Son?"

"No."

"No, no true hero would, would she? Mr. Son, these girls aren't innocent and they aren't heroes, their ambition will destroy the world if we don't stop them. What would your father do?"

Gohan let out a shuddering breath and collapsed onto the bed. This couldn't be right, this couldn't be the way these things were supposed to work.

"Sometimes being a hero means making impossible decisions."

"Alright" Gohan said hoarsely, "I'll help you."

**_I love you_**

The man nodded and handed Gohan another file. "I'm not asking you to kill all of them." The man said soberly "Only this one. Further instructions are in her file."

_I just wanted to be a hero._

__

The man slides the letter into an envelope and places it next to the one addressed to his father. He takes out one final sheet of paper and addresses it to a woman he knows all too well.

_Michiru Kaiou,_

_I'm sorry._

Gohan wandered aimlessly through the bustling city. It had been a week since he had accepted the strange man's mission. The folder he had been given had contained the identity of the woman he was supposed to kill, her name, her age and her address along with every other bit of information the man's spies had been able to gather. Gohan had been instructed to strike at her civilian persona rather than at her Senshi identity, lest the other Senshi suspect anything. He had been told to make it look like a hate crime or some other woefully common event, perhaps a botched robbery. The problem was, he wasn't sure there was anything to hate about this woman, other than the fact that she was a Senshi, which wouldn't do at all, and, in order to stage a robbery he had to be certain she was home alone, which didn't seem to happen all that often.

**_I hear babies crying_**

Each day that passed made him more and more frustrated. He had given his word that he would kill this woman, a task that seemed to grow more and more impossible. The tension finally became so high that before he realized what he was doing Gohan had buried his hand in a brick wall.

Gohan groaned and tried to pull his hand out, as he did so he heard a small gasp behind him.

"Are you alright?" Someone asked.

"Yeah," he grunted, "I just had some pent up-"but as he turned his head Gohan's world started to spin. This was her; this was the woman he was supposed to kill, standing right here fussing over his hand.

**_I watch them grow_**

"I'm Michiru Kaiou."

_I'm sorry._

The woman walked up behind him and studied his hand. "How did you do that anyway?"

"Like I said" Gohan answered, trying to hide the fact that he had started shaking. "I had some pent up.... and I guess I don't know my own strength."

"Well can you turn it?" the woman asked, grasping his wrist.

Gohan grimaced as he finally pulled his hand from the wall, the woman clucked at the amount of blood that covered it.

"Come inside," she said, taking his uninjured hand, "I'll get you a bandage or something."

His stomach went cold, it was like someone was just handing her to him and suddenly he didn't think he could go through with it. "No," he said backing away from her, "I'm fine, really."

Nonsense," she said, taking his hand again, "if you leave your hand might get infected and then they might have to amputate it and I'll have to live the rest of my life knowing I could have helped you and I can't deal with that kind of guilt. Besides, you just pulled your hand out of my living room."

**_They'll learn much more_**

Numbly Gohan blinked as he followed her inside.

"Here," she said, handing him a towel, "try to clean it off, I'll get the first aid kit."

She returned a few minutes later with a small red bag.

"Who's this?" Gohan asked, pointing to a picture of one of the other Senshi he knew Michiru lived with.

_I just wanted to be a hero._

"My girlfriend," she said nonchalantly as she put antibiotics on his hand. "She's off at a race, left me home alone to deal with strange men who put their fists through our walls."

**_Than I'll ever know_**

Gohan nodded as she finished up. "If you had to take one life in order to save a billion others," he asked standing, "would you?"

The woman looked confused. "I don't understand."

Gohan shoved his shaking hands into his pockets and asked the question again. "If you had to take one life in order to save a billion others, would you?"

The woman paused a moment and nodded "Yes," she said softly, "I suppose I would."

**_And I think to myself_**

Gohan nodded and pulled a pistol from his pocket. "So would I."

_I'm sorry._

_**What a wonderful world.**_

The man leaves the third letter without an envelope. He stands and faces the mirror.

**_Yes I think to myself_**

"My name is Gohan Son," he says, pulling a pistol from his pocket, "And I am a murderer."

_**What a wonderful world**_

So... yeah, I warned you.

Is farbeit a word? I'm not sure. I know unsurvivable isn't, but it suited my purposes and I'd like to argue that words exist to convey thoughts and feelings and ideas, and as long as you understood my thoughts and feelings and ideas just there then I can call it a word if I want to.

So I'm going to go write a really fluffy story now, have fun kids!


End file.
